Bridging the Advice Gap: Erin Redmond's Innovative Approach to Inclusive Finance

Charlie Van Derven: 0:16

You're listening to RIA Collective with your host Charlie Van Derven, a podcast designed to help financial professionals remove the fear and anxiety around going independent. Let's go. Thank you for tuning into another episode of RIA Collective. I'm excited to introduce my guest today. I'm joined today by Erin Redmond from Ford Financial group. What's going to be fun about this conversation is Erin got started before finding her way to financial services. Got started in online media, which has kind of dominated much of my career. So we got some fun things to talk about there and we're going to get the history of Ford Financial, how Erin got involved in the industry and what makes their firm different. We're going to talk a little bit about subscription pricing, which is something that they're trying to work through right now and I absolutely love, because it opens up services for more people. So that the folks Erin and the folks at Ford Financial can actually provide their awesome services to people who maybe don't have those levels of AUM that we're looking for right now, but certainly need the help. So, Erin, I'm a talker, so I'm going to have to shut up. First off, thank you so much for joining me today. I so appreciate you taking time out of your day to bring some wisdom to our listening audience.

Erin Redmond: 1:58

Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to see if I can inspire or help anyone out there listening.

Charlie Van Derven: 2:04

Well, you know, and as we've talked about, right as we're getting to know each other, really our goal here is as much as it is to bring knowledge and experience to maybe that captive advisor who feels like they're in the wrong environment. It's almost to instill confidence. Like your mom started the firm back in the Think, you said, and we're going to get a little bit of that information. But lots of people have done this before. In the 90s, it was a much more difficult thing to do to prop up an RIA. Today, of course, it's a whole lot easier with the technology and the consultants that are out there to help to make it happen. Awesome. Erin, thanks for being here. Erin, thanks for being here. Let's start before financial services. What did that look like? And we're close in age. I got started working with advisors back in the late 90s, but it was media driven. It was media driven at that point. And you were kind of getting started in your career at the same time in online media.

Erin Redmond: 3:10

Yeah, when I graduated college, I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And at the time, that's when it was 2000. So it was when the Internet was in the boom, I guess you could say, which it never really went to the bust a couple of years later, but I found it really exciting and I was just drawn to it and it worked out. I moved to Los angeles after I graduated from Santa Barbara and then found a job at it was a job board's website at the time called Hot Was. It was funny because were all young and we're renewing contracts and talking to recruiters and HR departments and helping them fill their job listings. And it's right when banner ads were coming out. So trying to find ways to find candidates or track them to the company or to the Hot Jobs website. So I did sales or account management there, so I had clients, and then my responsibility was to upsell and grow the accounts. But the way I was able to sell was just based on the relationship. I just getting to know what their needs were. I wanted the product to work. If it didn't work, we try to find out ways to help them find success. And that's really how I ended up staying in that industry for quite some time. But, yeah, it was fun and it was new and it was exciting, so I just went for it.

Charlie Van Derven: 4:49

That's awesome. Again. 1998, I joined 50 Below. That's now. A Broad Ridge company. But I think at our height, we probably hosted we had about 350 employees. We probably hosted, I don't know, 50 or 60,000 websites, a large portion of those for advisors. So now, while I wasn't selling banner ads at the time, certainly were kind of both entered the industry kind of at the same time. I was extremely niched out in financial services, but as you're growing up in online media, of course you kind of vicariously grew up in financial services, too. Ford Financial Group is a firm that your mom started, correct?

Erin Redmond: 5:31

Correct, yeah, she started in the early nineties.

Charlie Van Derven: 5:33

Okay, awesome. So it was happening long before you even got involved in online media.

Erin Redmond: 5:40

Yeah.

Charlie Van Derven: 5:41

That's awesome. Did you see it at that point? Did you know at that point that it was something you were going to be into? I mean, what was your take on your mom's firm?

Erin Redmond: 5:51

Well, I knew nothing about finance. Both my parents are CFPs. My mom started the firm in the early 90s working with women, and I'd hear them talk, I didn't really pay much attention. I never put it together that financial advising was very similar to what I was doing, even if it was working for Internet companies in the early 2000s, because it was all based on relationships and getting to know people and understanding their lives and listening to them. That's the majority of the position. Or being a financial advisor. And when I thought it was all math numbers crunching and data and everything, that is not really my strong suit. Again, I started from the very beginning when I changed my careers, learning everything about finance and investing. But, yeah, no, it really is the relationships that is the majority of the position, and that's why clients stay, and that's why clients come to you.

Charlie Van Derven: 6:57

Yeah, I agree 100%. We've got a lot of advisors who want to, let's say, flex their brain on knowledge of market, numbers of return and all this stuff. And anytime I've ever sat in any kind of review meeting right. A lot of clients eyes glaze over when you get into the stats behind it all. Whereas if you're focused on what all these stats mean to their life, which is the relationship aspect of it, and the knowledge of where they're trying to go, it creates a stronger bond. Definitely.

Erin Redmond: 7:33

Yeah. It's almost like you have to assume that nobody investing in charts and finance and all that is somewhat of a foreign language to people who have other jobs in other industries. It's not something they really think about, in my experience, and especially younger, my age and younger. It's just too much to even know where to begin, I think.

Charlie Van Derven: 8:01

Yeah, I agree with you. Being able to speak to the personal aspects is so much stronger. So is Ford financial group still your mom? It was really founded on working with women. Is that still a big piece of the business? Is it expanded at this point? We're a couple of decades later here.

Erin Redmond: 8:21

Yeah, it's expanded. We brought on some advisors. I'd say I want to say there's maybe 15 total of us in the office. Everyone's different. We all work together, but independently. So it's really based on who each individual advisor wants to serve, what niche is theirs. But our business is we still have a lot of the women that were clients in the early 90s, so we still attract a good amount of women also because I think me and one other advisor are the only women at the firm and there's not many female advisors. And I find that women tend to gravitate towards other women in terms of because this can be intimidating for financial advice. But yeah, everyone it depends on their niche. And so we work with everyone. Really awesome.

Charlie Van Derven: 9:14

Education is kind of at the center of all of it. If I remember from our conversation a week or two ago.

Erin Redmond: 9:21

Yeah, we educate our clients in our meetings. We hold seminars twice a year. We bring in usually a wholesaler, but really interesting topics, anything from healthcare to Social Security. We even did one on the pandemic. I think it was right after the pandemic. But just little knowledge, and it's free for our clients, and it's kind of a nice evening for them to sit and really listen one specific topic.

Charlie Van Derven: 9:50

Very cool. Statistically, I think women are like less than 20% of the industry. I chatted with Pamela Sams, who the episode hasn't published yet, but I think she said 13%. She's got a very similar focus. She's in DC. Very similar focus in working with newly single women, and she mentioned 13%. So the fact that you guys have a couple of female advisors that's really kind of pushing the curve, I would say. Awesome. Now your focus has changed a little bit, which brings us to the conversation about more of a subscription based pricing model. You'd mentioned you're kind of working through that right now. It's not necessarily in place, but I love it. You're working with more of a younger audience, which maybe doesn't have the assets built at this point. So I think a lot of advisors struggle with the ability to serve a client like that and get compensated fairly for what they bring to the table.

Erin Redmond: 10:55

Yeah, right. I also work with my husband, and so we partner together with couples, and then it's dependent, really, on whoever comes in if they want to work with me, just a woman or both of us or Nick. That's sort of how we structure it. But I just lost my train of thought. Oh, the advice pay. That's it. So advice pay. So we've been looking into that. I found out about it at the Focus Conference through LPL this past summer, and I've been doing some research into it, and I just find it so valuable right now. We're just trying to figure out, my husband and I, how to price it. Because you can tier it out based on if you're starting out in your career mid career, later on, if, say, you are in graduate school. And you're going to be a doctor, and you have all these loans to pay back, and so you have the potential to make a good amount of money, but you just don't have the assets there. Advice pay is a great way to come in, and you can set it up as a subscription model. You can do it at a one time situation. It's pretty flexible from what I've seen, and you can help people who may not have assets under management, but you can almost be like a financial coach to them and help them with cash flow or anything with their small business advice, and maybe they just want some guided advice as they get their financial lives together. And then in the long run, if you built that relationship and it's going really well, there's a good opportunity when they do have assets that they can bring those in, too. So it's almost like instead of relying our business only on assets under management, I'm looking for ways to diversify even that and find other avenues to include younger individuals.

Charlie Van Derven: 13:00

There's so many people that need it that, for whatever reason, have a difficult time working with an advisor, and I think that's a big one. Know if you go to a large firm, right, a Morgan or a Merrill or name the big firm a quarter million dollar minimum. And to your point, you might have a resident that's walking out of college with a quarter million dollars in school debt, so they're half a million dollars away from that minimum. So being able to provide education and advice to people who really need it, but on paper can't afford it. From an AUM perspective, that's awesome. It's kudos to you and Nick and the rest of your team for bringing something to the table that allows these people to get professional advice in a nontraditional fee structure. I think it's great.

Erin Redmond: 13:55

Yeah. It gives more opportunities for those who maybe want the help but feel like maybe they won't be accepted if you.

Charlie Van Derven: 14:07

So yeah, I think that's great. So, yeah, kudos to you guys. So if you're listening on Spotify or whatever, your listening platform, you can't see me applauding. But I think it's awesome just being able to bring your knowledge and your expertise to an audience that is really starved for it and really needs it. But 95% of advisors aren't available to them for the reasons we talk about.

Erin Redmond: 14:32

Right.

Charlie Van Derven: 14:33

Erin, there's a few questions I got to ask I like to ask everybody. Right. So your path to financial services is different than most people, right? Most people maybe met a recruiter at a job fair out of college and went through the big firm path and then moved to independence, and so they're going to have a different experience than you do, but got to ask you the same questions. Right. So as you transitioned out of that online media career and into financial services, was there anything that you feel like you did particularly well that set you up for success?

Erin Redmond: 15:12

Yeah, I think I worked on not letting myself be overwhelmed by everything that I had to learn. I had to take my licensing exams, I had to learn the business. It was just so new. And knowing myself, if I just let all of that weigh on me, I get stuck and not do anything. So what helps me is breaking everything down in small, little pieces and focusing one small goal at a time and the other stuff I need to do or learn. It keeps coming in, but I was really good at just not thinking, oh, this is going to take me forever. I'm changing my career at 36, what am I even doing? Those questions would come up, but by breaking it down in little small chunks and little short goals, next thing I know it just builds up and here I am. It's been ten years already and I don't know where the time's gone, but I think that's what helped me tremendously and being really forgiving with myself.

Charlie Van Derven: 16:22

Wow. Yeah. Patient was the word I was going to squeeze in there. Right. I got advice from actually it was a coaching client of mine years ago and they said essentially, you've got to be able to give yourself permission to go slow at something new. Right. So if you're doing something new and we all get frustrated and we want things to happen very quickly, I don't know if that's something that's bigger today because of our instant gratification with the internet, whatever else, but we all look for that gratification in a short time period. So I agree with you being able to know where you're headed, but be patient and take each step, that's awesome. Now, the flip side of that question. Erin, here's the flip side. Right? As you got involved with Ford Financial Group and changed that career, when you look back, is there anything that you think, maybe I'd have done that a little bit?

Erin Redmond: 17:23

You know, I probably wouldn't have studied and tried to take my CFP exam during the Pandemic when my kids were home.

Charlie Van Derven: 17:32

I can't imagine.

Erin Redmond: 17:34

Yeah, I did not pass, and that's just an example of being patient with myself. Maybe I'll get it down the line, but it just wasn't meant to be at the time. And looking back is when you realize, oh, yeah, that was a pretty stressful period.

Charlie Van Derven: 17:53

That's a hard not that I've taken it, and I'm likely to never take it, but the feedback is what a difficult test that is. And we've got two teenage daughters at home. We did the pandemic a little different. We bought a travel trailer and hit the road. Yeah, they did virtual school. We ten months, 40 states. We spent the winter in Tahoe, and I got a ski season in that I hadn't in a while. So, yeah, we had some fun with the Pandemic, but I couldn't imagine trying to prepare for something like that in that environment. How crazy. All right, I can see wanting to do that one a little bit differently.

Erin Redmond: 18:35

Yeah, actually, it opened up an opportunity, and I'm currently finishing up my MBA with an emphasis in financial psychology, because that's something else that's new and being incorporated not only on the CFP exam, but in firms. And I just find it so, you know, even though I didn't pass it at that moment, this opportunity opened up. And I just feel like things work know, however they're supposed to. So see the good or the positive in something that was a little stressful.

Charlie Van Derven: 19:10

That's awesome. Keep moving forward. So I want to know a little bit about Ford Financial Group and really what the goals for the firm are. We've got a listening audience that is largely made up of, again, that advisor who might be at a wirehouse, and they're like, gosh, I feel like I'm pigeonholed as to how I can serve my clients. Maybe they want to expand a little bit and get into an independent space. Tell me a little bit about where Ford Financial Group is headed, and perhaps we've got some listeners that have an interest in it.

Erin Redmond: 19:40

Yeah, well, we're a part of LPL, and we're in Fresno, California. My mother retired or semi retired. She still has trouble not working, which is funny. So she stepped back, and then the younger generation, I guess, if you will, has taken over. And yeah, it feels almost like it's a rebirth of the firm. We have a younger generation coming in, and we do look for advisors. We are open to growing. The main thing with us, I believe, and I don't do any of the hiring or recruiting, but if you have a book of business and you want to be independent and you want to work through LPL, we would definitely talk with each advisor and see if it's a so. We're definitely open to expanding into the future as we start this next leg of the Ford Financial Group journey.

Charlie Van Derven: 20:48

Yeah. Very cool. If we've got listeners who want to reach out and have a question for your story resonates with them. Erin, are you okay if they reach? Erin, are you okay if they reach?

Erin Redmond: 20:58

Oh, yeah. I understand what it feels like to be frustrated and feel like you are almost an imposter and not in the right spot, but you don't know what to do. Yes, I'd be happy to.

Charlie Van Derven: 21:13

That's awesome. What's the easiest way? I know you're really active on LinkedIn. I see your content a good job, by the way, on that. I love all the video content you guys are publishing. Is that the best way to reach you? Or maybe we plug the website.

Erin Redmond: 21:27

Yeah, you can reach me through our website, through LinkedIn. We just launched our instagram. We really don't know what we're doing, but we're trying. You just got to put yourself out there.

Charlie Van Derven: 21:41

That's half the battle, right, is being present. That's half the battle.

Erin Redmond: 21:45

You're not going to be perfect from the get go. It's just learning through that experience. But, yeah, LinkedIn or through our website would be good ways to get through to me.

Charlie Van Derven: 21:55

What's the website?

Erin Redmond: 21:56

URL it's WW dot Fordfg.com. I guess I could have left the www out there.

Charlie Van Derven: 22:05

Anyways, that's the given part. So here's what's funny, is, yeah, you got to put it out there. Being present is half the battle. If you go to my YouTube channel, our social advisors YouTube channel, like, I got a man bun for a period of it. I'm going through the mustache period now. We'll look back on these moments. So the videos have gotten a lot better, but I look back at those and Erin, they're cringeworthy. They really are.

Erin Redmond: 22:30

You can see how far you've grown.

Charlie Van Derven: 22:32

Yeah. Right there's. That part of it. And ten years from now, I'll be talking about how cringeworthy the mustache phase was. And it's kind of a joke. I've never had this before. I was a challenge in the office, and we've got a Logan in our office challenged me to a beard off, and I just couldn't handle the beard anymore, so I had to bring it down to I'm having fun with.

Erin Redmond: 22:57

Yeah, yeah.

Charlie Van Derven: 22:59

So, Erin Redmond, thank you so much for taking a little bit of your time today. You've got a unique path, you've got a unique perspective, and really, that's what we want to bring to our listening audience and giving people confidence to know that if you're stuck in a position that you don't want to be in, there are other options in this industry. And so you exemplify that. So, Erin, thank you for being here. I appreciate it.

Erin Redmond: 23:23

Of course. There's tons of opportunity teaching, education. Now with advice, pay is know research, talk to people, and you can definitely figure it out. Find your way.

Charlie Van Derven: 23:33

Yep. That's awesome. On behalf of Erin Redmond with Ford financial group and I don't think I said it at the head of the show in Fresno, California, I forgot to announce where you were at. So my apologies for that. On behalf of Erin Redmond and myself, Charlie Van Derven, thank you for joining us on another episode of this is kind of a passion project, right? So it's not like we're out there seeking big sponsorship. Maybe one know one day we'll monetize it. That's not our goal right now. Our goal is to help people move towards independence. So if you know anybody that should listen to this episode or another episode of RA collective, please share this with them. And if you enjoyed what you're listening to, give us a review. Helps us reach more people on the various listening platforms. So, Erin, once again, thank you for being here.

Erin Redmond: 24:21

Thank you for having me.

Charlie Van Derven: 24:22

You got it. My pleasure. And for all of you who spent some time listening to our episode, thanks for taking some time out of your life to join with us. Appreciate you listening to RIA collective. You've just listened to another episode of RIA collective with your host, Charlie Van Derven. For more information, visit riacollective.com now. Have a great day.